Dream Sequence
by Mouseglove
Summary: Shortly after the events of season 6, Willow receives a visitation from a powerful (and familiar) entity.


Title: Dream Sequence

Author: Mouseglove

Email: evolmouse@hotmail.com

Timeline/Spoilers: End of season 6.

Rating: PG (a little swearing, no sex)

Summary: This was my way of coming to terms with the loss of Tara. Shortly after S6, Willow receives a visitation from a powerful entity.

Type: angst

Distribution: Do as thou wilt, just don't change anything. And leave this in.

Disclaimer: I own nothing. And that's okay. The only way to truly be free is to have nothing and want nothing.

Feedback: Whatever.

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There's a white shirt covered with blood. It's on a counter with someone's skin draped over it, and a pile of fish guts beside the sink. There's light outside the window, but no sun, can't tell what time it is. Floorboards creak upstairs and all around. The dishwasher isn't working. Willow decides that she should go to the next room and tell the others.

Through the door, the next room is at the beach. It's a beautiful day, except for one dark cloud getting closer and bigger every moment. It'll rain soon. She should get inside. Now there's a white room where it won't be raining, and there are two comfy chairs. By the time she gets there, Willow begins to realize that she's dreaming.

There's no one else in the room. She sits down in one of the chairs. And then without warning there's a woman sitting across from her. She isn't Tara, but somehow she _is_ Tara. Whoever it is, she's looking right at Willow.

Sometimes in dreams you forget things. Like you forget that your son is now thirty years old, so every time you see him in your dreams he's about six. Or everybody forgets that someone has died and the dead person's just there and nobody thinks anything of it. Sometimes you forget things.

Willow remembers what happened to Tara. She isn't fooled for an instant. But Willow knows that the woman sitting there isn't trying to trick her. She is who she is, and she can't help that. Still, she is a stranger.

"You're not Tara," says Willow.

The woman answers in a familiar voice: "Sometimes I'm called Tara, but I'm not exactly the Tara you knew. She's not me, but I'm her, in a way."

"That's a little confusing."

"I know. I'm sorry, but it's going to be like that, I'm afraid. I don't do this very often."

"Do what?"

"Get involved like this. Talk to people. With words. It feels all clumsy and awkward."

"Well, I dunno. You seem pretty poised for somebody who's feeling awkward."

"Thanks."

"What are you? What are you doing here?"

"Like I said, I don't usually do this. But I was asked to make an exception, so here we are. Will, we have to talk."

"That's what we're doing. We're… we are. Talking."

"You've spent twelve of your last sixteen waking hours thinking up ways to kill yourself."

Eyes downcast, Willow shifts in her seat. Her response is almost a whisper. "So?"

"Will. You've got to stop."

"I want it to stop." Willow's voice is quiet and dead.

The woman pauses and takes a long breath in through her nose and out through her mouth. "Okay. I'll help you. There are two ways you can make it stop. Either you can do it by dying, or you can do it by living. And I'm here to tell you that it'll be better for both of you if you do it by living."

Willow raises her eyes again and tries to focus on the woman. Her answer comes rather louder and more indignant than she intends. "What do you mean, 'better?' She's _dead_. She can't get better from that. It's _done_."

"But it's not over."

A quick flash of hope rapidly fades and leaves a ball of outrage in its wake. Destructive magicks are coiling unbidden around Willow's hands.

"It is **done**. I tried **everything**. And if you are trying to get my hopes up again, I am going to make you regret it."

The woman's voice is calm and patient, without a trace of condescension. "Willow, please calm down."

"Who are you? Why are you doing this?"

"Because I want to help you. You will be with her again, that much is certain. The where and the when depend on you."

"Oh, so it's about reincarnation now, is it?" The magicks build with Willow's rage. "Billions of people on this planet and we're just miraculously going to run into each other and pick up where we left off?"

"There are a lot more worlds than one, but you've said it yourself: the two of you always know how to find each other."

"Shut up!" Willow stands. "You think this is funny?"

"No I don't. I think you should sit down."

"And I think you're going to wish you'd kept this Hallmark bullshit to yourself." Willow begins to lash out with dark bolts of pain and destruction. How dare that… that _thing_ come into her dreams and spit on Tara's memory like this? How _dare_ she? Tara was the purest light in all the world, and she was snuffed out for no reason, and now everything's supposedly okay? No. Not okay. It's the end of the world, and nothing else can make it right.

Willow pours on all the hate she can find, and there is quite a lot. But still sitting there in that comfortable chair, the woman looks back at her with sad, almost-familiar eyes.

Willow stops for a moment, but the black clouds still surround her, heavy with power. "Okay. So it's a dream and I can't hurt you here. But I can find out who you are. And when I wake up I will hunt you down." The woman's shoulders drop, and she casts down her eyes. With a commanding voice and a terrible echoing undertone, Willow demands, "Who are you?"

"I was hoping it wouldn't come to this."

"Too late. Who are you?" A twisting compulsion stretches out from Willow's mind, but by the time it gets halfway to the woman's head it dissipates into nothing. "You _will_ tell me. You can't block me forever."

The woman looks up at Willow once again, but this time her eyes are quite different. Majesty and purpose. Utterly unyielding. "I can if I choose. But it seems there is no other way to make you listen. Who am I?"

Quite suddenly, space and dimensions become very strange. The woman does not move, but she is somehow larger than she was. She hasn't grown in height or width or depth, but in gravity and importance. Willow feels like she's falling slowly toward her.

"I am Kwan-Yin, Bodhisattva of Compassion. I am Amida Buddha, who returns travelers to their homes and their loves. I am the Virgin Mary, mother of Gods and Saviours."

Willow cannot understand what is happening, and she will be unable to explain any of it when she wakes. Her rage is swallowed by an ocean of awe. She has never felt so tiny, so insignificant. She sees and feels endless galaxies full of uncountable worlds in every direction and they're so close she can touch them, and all of it is somehow smaller than this woman, whose shape and form and feel are still changing with every name she speaks.

"I am Green Tara, remover of obstacles, rescuer, saviouress." Willow sees a flash of an axe, a demon falling toward pavement, and hears a voice saying, "Nobody messes with _my_ girl!"

"I am White Tara who nurtures and protects, bringer of comfort and solace until the end of everything." Two girls by a couch. One is in agony; she hates herself for what she has done, and she _has_ done terrible, perhaps unforgivable things. But for the other, these things are unimportant in the face friendship and love. She speaks: "It's not that simple."

"I am Red Tara, who transforms suffering into courage." Fingers crushed and bleeding, a mortal woman glares defiantly into the very face of a God, refusing to submit, refusing to betray her friends.

There is no Willow. She forgets that she exists.

"In every place and time that is home to flesh and pain, I am She Who Hears the Cries of the World. I am called by more names than you have cells in your body. By every name I am called, I answer. One of my names is Tara. You have called me, and I have come."

Willow is weeping uncontrollably. Willow is sitting calmly and comfortably. Willow is rejoicing in perfect ecstasy. Willow is tearing her own heart out of her chest with her bare hands. Every corner of her mind is filled with whole worlds of suffering and solace. There are so many hurts and so many screams that even the strongest, hardest, most uncaring soul in all of Creation would shatter into nothing if it felt this. And Willow feels all of it, and somehow, everything is going to be all right. It's more than made up for. It's more than worth it. It wouldn't fit properly together any other way. Without a clue, she understands everything.

Slowly, the moment passes. Willow's mind and senses gradually return, pushing out whatever had temporarily occupied their place. Once again, she sits across from the woman who is Tara and is not Tara. Time passes, and Willow remembers what led up to that… experience. Then she remembers her research on Asian religions. She remembers the Chinese Kwan-Yin and the Tibetan Tara. Back in Stevenson Hall, Willow had joked that Tara must be an incarnation of the Tibetan Goddess who was also called Tara. They had not yet kissed. Still insecure and uncertain, Tara had blushed and hidden behind her hair and stammered something about not really knowing much about the Eastern pantheons, saying she felt more comfortable with Western Neo-Pagan practices. Then Willow remembers that Bodhisattvas can sometimes forget what they are. They are enlightened souls who were given the opportunity to pass into the bliss of Nirvana, and chose instead to stay behind in this world, suffering along with everyone else. All so they can help other beings to find enlightenment as well.

"Oh," says Willow.

The woman's mouth slowly shapes itself into a familiar crooked grin. "Now will you listen to me?"

"So, Tara was a Bodhisattva?"

"Close enough. She found her own path."

"So, a sort of… Wiccan version?"

"No versions. She's Tara. And where you go, she goes."

"Oh." Tears are an abstract concept. Willow thinks about them for a moment. "Where is she now?"

"She's waiting for you. She's in the place where you're going."

  
"But, where's that?"

"Can't quite tell yet. It depends on what you do with the rest of this life."

"Wait. Wait a second. She's there already, but it depends on me? How, how can she be somewhere if, if nobody knows where it is yet?"

"She is outside time."

"Oh. Well, that's okay, then." Nervous giggle in the chest. "Of course! Time's weird when you're dead. I mean, if it were all, you know, linear, then she'd end up being a lot older than me next time around. Right? I mean, if I live another forty years, then she'd be forty years older than me when I got to where she's at. Not that I wouldn't… you know. I mean, age difference, so shallow. Who cares if she's older, right? It's what's inside that counts."

The woman smiles fondly. "Time isn't really an issue. And it's probably not going to matter so much next time anyway. I think she's going to be your mother."

"Oh. I mean, what? I don't want… I mean, well I guess it would be kinda nice to have a mom who was all affectionate and caring and smoochy with you but," she winces, "I don't really want her to be my mom."

The lopsided smile spreads across the woman's face. "Will, she's already been your mom. Many, many times. She's been your daughter too, on occasion. But most of the time it's not a blood relation between you. Usually you're friends and lovers. You'll be back into that groove before long."

"How can you know that?"

"I've been watching the two of you for a long, long time. You still surprise me once in a while, but I'm pretty sure that's how it's going to go this time around."

"Oh." Willow pauses for a moment. "Watching us?"

"Mm-hm. I have an… interest in Tara. And by extension, you too."

"Is this one of those splitty things? You send out bits of yourself to be human?"

"Mm, I guess that's pretty close. Tara can learn things and experience things that I can't anymore."

"Oh! That's right, you used to be human. So does she always come back as a woman, like you?"

"Yep. Matter of principle."

"Do I?"

"Usually, but not always."

"Why not?"

"Perspective. Learning. Experimentation. You've been a few other genders too."

"Other genders?"

"Some worlds are pretty weird. A while back you were in this really odd place where they have seventeen genders. They need one of each to complete the sex act and reproduce. Makes it pretty hard to get laid unless you're queer."

"Okay, change of subject." The woman's laughter rings warmly through the space between them. "So, when did she split off from you?" The woman closes her eyes.

"She came into being when I saw you. When I saw the path you had laid ahead of yourself." The woman's face slips into a gentle sadness. Willow starts to fidget uncomfortably. "So much sorrow. So much anger. A river of tears and a sea of longing. And before I even realized it, Tara was there. She is not me. It is as if when I cried for your suffering, my tears became a flame, which caught in the material world and took on a life of its own." Willow's brain is exhausted. She hears the words and understands their meaning, but she cannot absorb them into her heart. Her mind takes the thoughts and runs away with them.

"So she came to save me from myself. She's just going to be cleaning up after me for all eternity."

  
The woman's expression is both sour and amused. She rubs her eyes. "It's always so hard with words. I don't think I'm explaining this very well. She balances you. Youth to age, impulsive strength to wise passivity. Each completes the other."

"So, she's like my teacher?"

"Among other things."

"Guess I'm not much of a student, then."

"Willow, listen to yourself. Do you really think she's never learned anything from you? I suppose you must think _I've_ never learned anything from _her_." Willow's eyebrow rises as electrochemical messages trickle through her brain. "You are a single being combined, and you are independent of each other. The pattern between you shifts from one place and time to the next, but it is still you. It is what you are, and it is who you are."

"But she's not with me here."  
  
"And that is the form the pattern takes in this time and place."

"But how can that be right?"

"I never said it was right."

  
"Then why did it happen?"

"Because she was finished in that place, and you were not. She'd accomplished what she had set out to do." The woman stares wistfully into the distance. "She's incredible. It seems like she deliberately sets out to make it harder for herself every single time. And somehow she always manages to return to her true form. She couldn't have done it this time without you. Did you know that?"

"I… I'm not sure."

"I think you do. She passed her own test because of you. And now your test is here. Once entwined with her, can you still be who you are, when she moves ahead to wait for you?"

"I don't think I know who I am. Not without her. When I was with her, I knew exactly who I was."

"But you forgot for a while, didn't you?"

"What?"

"When you were stealing her life. Her memories. That wasn't you, but you thought it was you. She had to go away to remind you who you really were."

"That's… harsh.

"Nowhere near as harsh as you were. She's never going to get those things back, you know. Death causes no real damage in the long term. It happens to all of us over and over again. But we live so that we can experience things. You took her experiences away from her." Willow's hands travel up to her temples. "She needed to teach you a lesson, and so she left you. It was the single hardest thing she did in that life, and she did a lot of hard things. Sometimes I think she was too quick to forgive you." She sighs and smiles. "But then, that's Tara for you. She never can stay angry with you for long.

"But she does what you need her to do," the woman continues, "even if it's not what you want her to do. And so she's gone and left you again, to teach you her final lesson for this life."

"She did not leave me on purpose!"

"Not exactly. But in the moment she entered that life, she knew in what manner she would leave it."

Willow is nearly hysterical. "She planned for that?"

"No, no! Oh, Willow!" The woman reaches out, and without either of them standing, in fact without either of them even moving, Willow sinks into the woman's embrace. Willow sobs at first, but the warmth and softness wrap around her so perfectly, she goes silent almost at once. The woman's body fits into Willow's tears, supporting her gently all over. The woman's energy _cushions_ every emotion with a feather's touch and the absolute certainty that everything, everything in the entire universe will be all right. "I'm so sorry. I wish I could explain better, but I'm so clumsy with words."

Willow tries to respond, but her language centers aren't working at all. She descends into the warmth and light, arms wrapped tightly around the woman's waist. She is inside the woman. There is no such thing as time. A galaxy or two might burn out in that perfect silence. When Willow returns to time once again, sitting back up, she remembers clearly where they were when they left off.

"So don't tell me with words. Show me. I know you can."

"But I don't know if I should."

"Please."

The woman closes her eyes again. She moves her left hand in front of her left breast with thumb and index finger touching, while her right hand moves down in front of her right knee, offering its palm to Willow. A moment passes, then her eyes open again.

"Willow, look at me." She does. And she wishes that time would go off-kilter again, because every second that passes and every word that comes takes away Willow's certainty and righteousness. "You have come into this life to experience things, and to learn. I could give you what you ask, but in doing so I would be stealing from you. A crime far worse than yours against Tara. This is the critical moment. This is when you must choose to follow the way of compassion and generosity or the way of selfishness and destruction. You must choose among these things for what they are, not for what you think they will bring you. I cannot show you where each will lead without destroying the lesson you would learn by choosing. All of Tara's work in this life, everything she gave to you, her suffering and her death will have been for nothing. But if you choose, even if you choose badly, it will have had meaning. It will matter that it happened. Do you understand?"

Willow wants to say 'no'.

"Yes," she whispers.

"I'm sorry."

"Why did you do this?"

"As I said, it's not my way to do this sort of thing, but I was asked to make an exception."

"By who?"

"Who do you think?"

Willow laughs a humourless laugh. "One last gift."

"Do you trust me, Will?"

Willow takes a breath, and the exhalation comes faster and sharper and more like a sob than she had intended.

"Yes. With everything."

"Then believe me when I tell you this. You're going to be okay. Even if you freak out and go on a dark magick killing spree and then slash your wrists as soon as you get home, in the end, at the end of everything, you'll be all right. That's one of the secrets. Everything turns out okay in the end. Everyone is saved. Everyone ascends and transcends. It takes a long, long time, but it does happen. And she's staying with you all the way to the end."

"I'm starting to wake up."

"Yes."

"Hold me?"

The woman's smile has the warmth to melt a glacier and the sadness to break your heart. She stands and spreads her arms. Willow feels herself entering the embrace even before she rises to her feet. Embedded in love, Willow struggles to remain unconscious. A long time passes, but no amount of time could ever be long enough.

At last, she opens her eyes to the bedroom she had shared with Tara. For the first time in memory, she has slept well. Unable to decide how she feels, she rolls slowly to the edge of the bed, reaches to the bedside table and strokes the glass covering Tara's picture.

"See you soon."


End file.
